George E. McCarthy is Professor of Sociology at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. (1972) in philosophy from Boston College and an M.A. and Ph.D. (1979) in sociology from the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research. He has been a research fellow at the universities of Frankfurt/Main, Munich, and Kassel, Germany. He is the author of a number of works, including Marx and the Ancients: Classical Ethics, Social Justice, and Nineteenth-Century Political Economy (Rowman & Littlefield, 1990) and Classical Horizons: The Origins of Sociology in Ancient Greece (SUNY Press, 2002).

“George E. McCarthy [...] presents a new reading of Karl Marx’s theory of social justice and provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of the ethical, political and economic foundations of this theory.” —Xuanpu Zhuang, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Ethical Archaeology of Justice in MarxDialectic between the Ancients and the Moderns: Natural Law and Natural Rights1 Natural Law and Natural Rights in Locke: Indifference and Incoherence of LiberalismThomas Hobbes and the State of Nature and WarRichard Hooker and the Laws of Nature and Ecclesiastical PolityLocke on Natural Rights and Natural LawEthics and Structure in Natural LawNatural Law Limits to Natural Rights in the Original State of NatureEclipse of Natural Law and Social Justice in the Second State of NatureIrrelevance of Natural Law, Incoherence of Liberalism, and the Return to Hobbes2 Justice Beyond Liberalism: Natural Law and the Ethical Community in HegelEarly Theological Writings and Dreams of Classical Antiquity in HegelHegel’s Natural Law and Critique of Liberalism and Natural RightsSocial Ethics and Integration of Natural Law and Natural RightsHegel’s Philosophy of Right, Law, and the State as Objective SpiritFormation of the Ethical Life in the Family, Civil Society, and the StateMarx’s Critique of Hegel and the Revival of Classical Democracy in Spinoza and RousseauEthics, Virtue, and Natural Law in Marx3 Civil and Legal Justice: Integrating Natural Rights and Natural LawReligious Prejudice, Judaism, and Civil RightsNatural Rights as Ideology and AlienationTransition of Politics from Pure Ideology to Human Rights and EmancipationCritique of Liberal Democracy and Contradictions between Economic and Political RightsMarx’s Theory of Emancipation and Human RightsNatural Rights of Free Press and Universal Suffrage4 Workplace Justice: Ethics, Virtue, and Human FreedomAlienation and the Virtue of Work and Self-DeterminationWork as Productive Life and Creative BeautyEthics, Human Needs, and Natural LawVirtue and Late Medieval Thomistic Natural Law5 Ecological Justice: Historical Materialism and the Dialectic of Nature and SocietyAlienation of Production, Labour, and NatureDialectic of Nature and the Alienation of ConsciousnessNatural Science as the Objectification and Social Praxis of Species BeingScience as Objectivity and AlienationSocial Metabolism, Contradictions, and Ecological CrisesSocial Justice and the Natural Laws of Ethics and EcologyStructures of Democracy, Economy, and Social Justice in Marx6 Distributive Justice: Justice of Consumption, Economic Redistribution, and Social ReciprocityLabour, Nature, and Society in the Gotha ProgramEquality, Fair Distribution, and the Public Expenses of ProductionDistribution, Fairness, and the Means of Social ConsumptionSocialism, Self-Realisation, and Human NeedCritique of Reformist and Vulgar Socialism – Happiness without Meaning7 Political Justice: Ethics and the Good Life of Democratic SocialismFranco-Prussian War and the Formation of the Paris Commune of 1871Dismantling the Old State and Rise of Political Democracy in the CommuneOrganisation of Labour and Economic Democracy‘Declaration to the French People’ and the Social Programmes of the CommuneMarx, Lincoln, and the Human Emancipation from Racial and Wage Slavery8 Economic Justice: Ethics, Production, and the Critique of Chrematistics and Political EconomyCommodities, Exchange, and the Labour Theory of ValueLabour Power, Surplus Value, and the Alienation of Chrematistic ProductionNatural Law of Contradictions, Crises, and CapitalNatural Law of Justice and Natural Law of ValueBibliographyIndex